Independence Council OKs controversial committees while Anthony Togliatti is out

INDEPENDENCE. Residents at Tuesday’s special City Council meeting were incensed at what happened there.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss council committee assignments. Vice Mayor Anthony Togliatti had requested the meeting after council had failed to agree the week before on the list of assignments he had proposed.

“I have been publicly criticized for the method I used,” Togliatti said at the Feb. 23 meeting. “In order to make everyone happy there’s got to be some compromise. There was no way possible for everyone to get what they wished.”

He set the meeting with the goal to “get this adopted by the second Tuesday of March,” he said.

However, Togliatti was ill, and not able to attend the meeting Tuesday. In his absence, Councilman Jim Crooks made a motion to amend the resolution, and presented another list of committee chairs and members.

Crooks’ proposal kept most of the committee chairs the same as last year, filling in spots held last year by councilmen Dave Grendel and George Klepacz with new members Patricia Wisnieski and Dr. Carl Asseff.

He also gave chairmanship of a new committee, economic growth and development, to Asseff, who had suggested forming it.

“My observation is that the committee assignments as they are proposed (by Togliatti) will not be approved by the majority,” Crooks said. “At the end of the day, we have to bring closure to this issue. I didn’t see us doing that.”

Asseff and Wisnieski spoke against the amendment.

Wisnieski asked why Crooks had not sent copies of the new proposal to council ahead of time so they could be prepared to discuss it. Crooks replied that he had just typed the list that afternoon.

She also was against Crooks’ idea that members who chaired a committee the previous term should have the “right of first refusal.”

“We’re not entitled to a committee just because we served on it before. The right of first refusal is hogwash to me,” she said.

Asseff was against Crooks’ proposal because he “bypassed the process” and never discussed it with the vice mayor. He said council refused to vote a couple weeks ago when Councilman Tom Narduzzi was absent, and should extend the same courtesy to Togliatti.

“This is just nonsense, what’s going on here,” Asseff said. “There is no place for this animosity. This is payback time.”

He asked to withdraw his name from the economic development committee, but Mayor Greg Kurtz said council had to vote on the amendment as it was.

Council voted 4-2 for the amendment, with Crooks, Narduzzi, Jim Piteo, and Jim Riley voting for it, and Wisnieski and Asseff against it.

Resident Janine Chase was so angry she was shaking. She had asked permission to speak during the meeting, Kurtz did not let her, saying she could speak later.

“I was here in caucus when they would not pass any committees because Mr. Narduzzi was out. They would not give the same consideration to Mr. Togliatti, who is the vice mayor because the people gave him the most votes,” Chase said. “This is nothing but a show of power.”

Chase said she had never met Togliatti.

“The vice mayor has never even seen the appointments they just approved. That bothers me,” she said.

Resident Larry Rogers said that negotiating means give and take, and compromise.

“What I witnessed was not negotiating, it was a power play. It was a run through,” he said. “This is all wrong. There is no disguising it.”

John Stoika said he had never seen this kind of discussion in his 53 years as a resident.

“It’s a power struggle. There is no other way to look at it,” Stoika said. “How much of a role did the people of Independence have in the decision that was just made? None.”

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